Menu Only DVD

[RaMDaY]

Is there any software out there that will let me make a DVD-Video disc that’s just one big menu? I’m mainly trying to do this because I want to fill a DVD up with a bunch of pictures so I can view them on my TV. I don’t like the whole slide show thing. I’d like it to act more like a web page where I can go through the menus, pick what picture I want to look at and then stare at it until my hearts content.

[TRILIGHT]

As far as I know, this would be rather simple to do and just about any DVD authoring software should be able to do it. Your pictures would just be the background and each would be a seperate "menu". You would have to do quite a bit of work to set up all of your navigation but, yes, you could do this with just about any software.

[auenf]

and at worst case, you would have to import a blank m2v file as the video part if you cant compile without it.

Enf...

[Navellint]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
You would have to do quite a bit of work to set up all of your navigation but, yes

where 'quite' is a big understatement as about 40k pics fit on a dvd±r. I guess RaMDaY would like to save time and thus choose a slideshow afterall.
I think it's more of an option (but not really) to make a something like a custom template that you can use over and over for separate discs if you really need to have thumbnails in menus. You'd still have to make 40k thumbnails in over 1k menus and even more links.
I've never used photo-cds, but couldn't you take the menu of such a thing and import it into your authoring program to be a menu?
I was thinking about a system where every pic is a menu as well: it should have a bar somewhere where you can skip 100 or 1k or 10k pics forward or back. This is still no operation to do in batch I guess.

[Xperience]

Why nog make a VCD with Nero with a nice Menu in it ?

I know a vcd only can contain 700mb but still you can get alot of pictures on it.
At the same time you can make in nero a nice looking menu.

Just an idea.

Regards,

Xperience

[RaMDaY]

VCDs only go to 99 tracks so you'd only have 99 pictures. (Or atleast that's what Nero told me when I tried)

[Navellint]

xperience:
a vcd has a resolution of 320x288 or svcd 320x576 (?) so the quality would suck. Personally I think 720x576/480 (dvd PAL/NTSC resp) is the lowest acceptable quality for pictures.

ramday:
if (s)vcd is acceptable for you, then there's a possibility to make a videostream from separate pictures in TMPGenc (http://www.tmpgenc.net/e_download.html) . Oh , hey, this would work for dvd as well. Never tried it though.